There are times when writing the blog before the rest of the site goes live gets a bit tricky. There are times I want to make reference to things that aren’t online yet, or there are times I’m aware of the times I can’t make reference to things that aren’t online yet which will mean they’re out of date when things are online. This is one of those times. A bit of present/future simul-tense writing’s in order.

As many or none of you will know or come to know soon at some point in the future or recent past, one of the Butterflies (I’ll explain later) is on meddling (take my word for it). It says, said or will soon come to be saying that we have to get stuck in if we’re going to fix the million and one problems humans have come up with because being a bystander isn’t much use to anyone. (I think I pulled that off. Or I think I will come to be having had pulled it off.)

With that in mind, this week I meddled like a spinster with a net curtain, time on her hands and children she’s lost touch with. I heard raised voices outside but thought nothing of it because it’s not very unusual round here. Then I heard threats of violence but thought nothing of it because it’s not very unusual round here. Then I heard a car careering up the street in reverse but thought nothing of it because… Long story short, I saw a car getting beaten up by some twats with a wrench.

Perhaps this puts Zero Towers in a bad light. It makes my spacious headquarters sound more like a pokey wee flat above a pub, opposite another pub and below a knife factory in the crack den district of Scumsville. I assure you that’s not… That’s not, um… Hey screw you!

When the police came I went out for a chat. They said there would have been loads of witnesses but not many willing to talk so I told them what I saw, being sure to point around a lot to make sure onlookers could see me openly squealing out there on the street. That’s meddling! That’s getting stuck in! And not because I want a reward. Not because I have a strong sense of social justice. Not because I want to take back the streets from the violence that dirties them, but because apparently I want to get my face kicked in by twats who beat up cars with a wrench. Oh God, what did I do? It seemed fine at the time!

Right, calm down. Worst case, if they hear about it and come at me with a hammer I can move to Bel Air and churn out dreck in both rap and movie form.

In summary, meddling: the most morally superior form of stupidity we have.

The Charity of the Month has become such an anticipated feature that in the days surrounding payday CEOs from the world’s largest charities hang around outside Zero Towers in the hope they’ll persuade me to choose their causes. Just two nights ago I found Oxfam’s operations director rooting around in my bins trying to tape my shredded bank statements back together.

This month’s monthly Charity of the Month is Vision Aid Overseas, a small charity with just 7 staff, 175 volunteers and income that topped £1 million for the first time last year. It works to help the estimated 670 million people in the world who have poor eyesight but no access to glasses or treatment.

Vision Aid Overseas was founded in 1985 and works in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Zambia. It supports 11 Vision Clinics and last year gave 42,000 eye tests and distributed 35,000 glasses. This is a massive difference to make to people in countries where short-sightedness is a disability that could land you in a school for the blind or make you unable to work. My donation will pay for ten children’s eye tests, making me a hero of blue plaque proportions.

You’ll have noticed a general election was called last week. As I write the people of Britain are gripped by election fever. “Election”, they say. “Let’s all election”. Every adult in the country is rushing to register to vote, every registered voter is anxiously awaiting their chance to cross a box or hang a chad, and every child is waiting to come of age so they too can do the thing what I just said about.

Actually, given the hundreds of years of battling it took to get the vote and the small detail of it actually mattering who runs the country, turnout is generally pretty low: 61% in 2005, 59% in 2001. Among people aged 18-25 MORI estimates turnout at 37% and 39%. That puts the piss and poor in piss poor. We’ll not go into the reasons behind low turnout. Seems safe to assume they include apathy, disinterest, disconnect, disillusionment and the suspicion that all politicians are gimp mask-wearing slush funders.

The point is despite our cynicism there’s an election knocking about and we have to do something. Voting is yer basic activist activity. We can elect a bunch of people who want to drill every last bit of oil and cut aid to the developing world or a bunch of people who want to throw more cash at sustainable energy and cut developing countries’ trade tariffs and debt repayments. Politicians won’t solve every problem by themselves and no doubt they’ll find a couple new ones but while we’re fixing the world we may as well delegate some of the work to them.

The trick here is to know what we’re talking about, learning about parties’ policies and histories to better choose between Labour, Conservatives, the yellow one or the others. We’ll start on the official websites here, here and here, reading but not necessarily believing their manifestoes. Then we’ll check our constituency results from last time to see if a bit of tactical voting’s called for to keep a party out rather than get a party in. We’ll follow the campaigns somewhere like here or here to keep up to date and we’ll watch the debates on TV scheduled for 15, 22 and 29 April. I know which side I’m taking on them already: I’m pro-TV.

Right, we’re ready. Let’s attend to the matter of electing a government. Then get back to recycling, interpretive dance and worm poop.

It’s been suggested that last week’s effort was distinctly poor given it amounted to little more than turning off a light bulb. I feel that’s uncalled for. I feel proud of my actions and secure in my defence that actually a number of bulbs were off for a whole hour while at the same time being not on for 60 consecutive minutes. Besides, I said something about humanity being around me.

But if you thought last week’s was lousy wait til you get a load of this: for the past couple of weeks I’ve been volunteering for a charity I can’t talk about, doing something I can’t mention to help people whose identity will have to remain classified or I risk blowing my cover. Try blogging about that, bitches!

Let’s see what I can get through my self-censor. I’ve been rewriting and redesigning a website for a small charity based in a town in the UK that supports people of a certain age in a developing country somewhere in one of the hemispheres. Perhaps I’m being too vague. The country in question has a flag and a lake and a capital city and if you look up into the sky at night you can see the moon. Damn it, now I’ve said too much.

Hopefully my efforts will encourage more online donations, work as an electronic leaflet for grant and trust people and encourage supporters to take on fundraising events. Doing a fairly unimportant and workmanlike thing like the website allows the trustees to focus on the more important things like the welfare of the people in their care, if indeed they have people in their care whose welfare has to be trusteeded. Maybe they don’t. Too much again. Look over there!

This is why I like volunteering; the practical, unglamorous do-goodery of it all. It’s why I used to volunteer for one of the world’s largest organisations of some sort or other helping issue and repair equipment, and before that as a fundraiser for a small charity that supported people of a certain age with a medical condition of a specific type. Volunteering is all types of good. You can do some here, here or even here, giving your time and talents to a charity so they can save the world and you can feel all kinds of noble.

If you’re only in it for the undercover blogging don’t bother; you can’t get shit out of it.